Kraft changed its recipe for macaroni and cheese to remove the artificial preservatives and dyes -- without telling anyone. And... no one noticed the switch (and over 50 million boxes were sold). Kraft announced the "new and improved" recipe, hailing it as a success. However, doesn't that just mean no one reads ingredient labels (or that the labels are so vague/inaccurate that the ingredients can change without anyone knowing)? Essentially, if no one can taste the difference, Kraft just proved you can sell any set of ingredients without telling anyone. Soylent Green may contain some natural and/or artificial flavoring? [url]

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The global food supply chain is significantly more complicated than it was a few generations ago. Some of it is due to technological progress, but sometimes it's due to greed and/or pollution. Eliminating waste and making food processes as efficient as possible sounds like a admirable goal, but the food products created at the end of the day should be appetizing... and, more importantly, safe to eat. If you're not too squeamish, check out these links on food that might churn your stomach.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Red Bull made a huge advertising event out of Felix Baumgartner's record-breaking free-fall from the edge of space. But it's not the only food/drink maker to sponsor a space-related promotion. Maybe it's a bit disconcerting that food companies have enough dough in their advertising budgets to fund crazy stunts, or maybe it's awesome that advertising/marketing budgets are being used to fund incredibly cool projects.... Either way, here are a few other examples of sponsored space foods.

from the you-put-your-chocolate-in-my-trademark-lawyer dept

A ton of people have been submitting variations on this story of how candy company Hershey is suing candy company Mars, claiming that Mars' new Dove brand of chocolate and peanut butter candies has packaging that looks too much like Hershey's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Most of the stories I saw didn't have any actual images to show, but the link here has the following two images:

And, similar to the recent legal spat we covered concerning beer cans, the wrappers look like they have two totally different designs. Given both of these cases happened in such close proximity, it does make you wonder if consumer goods companies are getting much more aggressive in trying to claim any package that has some incredibly superficial similarities now represents trademark infringement.

Update: As pointed out in the comments, Hershey's has a couple of newer packages that do appear a bit more similar, but still pretty different:

from the the-public-domain-has-no-restrictions dept

Last week, a PR person working for Mars (makers of M&Ms and such) sent me an email about how scientists from Mars along with the USDA and IBM (among others) had sequenced the cacao genome and that "the results of the research will be made available to the public with permanent access," at the accurately named Cacao Genome Database. Sounded interesting, but it was a busy week, and I wasn't able to spend much time digging into it. I was intrigued, however, by the claim in the press release that the team had "released the preliminary findings of their breakthrough cacao genome sequence and made it available in the public domain". It's so rare to hear of some big companies doing research and release it into the public domain, that it, alone, seemed newsworthy, and something I wanted to explore.

Thankfully, before I even got the chance to, I saw Glyn Moody point me to Glen Newton's analysis of the claims of public domain and open access for the data, only to discover it's not true. While they are making the data available, it's hardly public domain. You have to agree to a license that has some serious restrictions in it (and some contradictions). For example, it lists out the ways you can use it -- and leaves out commercial use. Real public domain doesn't care (and doesn't require a license).

Then there's this:

The User shall not transfer the information referred to in this agreement, or any copy of them, to a third party without obtaining written authorization from the Providers which will only be provided subject to the third party user entering into this same IAA.

I'm kind of wondering if this is just boilerplate that the lawyers threw into this not understanding what public domain means. But it seems pretty silly to (a) create a license for supposedly public domain data which (b) doesn't allow you to tell anyone about what's in the license!

There is a nice bit in the "license" where it says you can't use the data in a patent application, but one would hope that the data being in the public domain would exclude it from being used in a limited fashion elsewhere anyway (sans license agreement). Separately, someone in the comments notes that the original license agreement said that if you used the data, you couldn't publish any articles about your findings until some period in the future -- but that clause was later removed (though, it's unclear if those who signed in prior to the removal still need to live by that).

Today, Mars, Incorporated, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), and IBM released the preliminary findings of their breakthrough cacao genome sequence and made it available in the public domain.

Thus, one could easily read that and believe these findings are public domain. But, then, when you go to the actual site, it claims all sorts of license restrictions. So, if someone goes and copies all the data and puts it on their own site, is that legal? It certainly looks like the company put the info into the public domain via the press release, and once something is in the public domain, you can't reverse that (well, unless you're the 10th Circuit appeals court). So, it certainly looks like someone could make the argument that the license Mars is trying to put on this data is meaningless. The company has already declared it in the public domain, and thus, no license applies. But, here's where the lack of any clear rules for how you officially make something public domain come into play. Would Mars claim that the press release "misrepresented" the company's position?

I don't mean to come down too hard on Mars. It's actually quite nice that a company would do such research and try to make it "open" and try to prevent it from being locked up in patents. I really do commend such actions, and don't wish to negate that point. But, I think the public domain is a really important thing, and if a company wants to put content into the public domain, they should be clear about what's really in the public domain.

from the our-wonderful-society dept

Eric writes in to let us know of a rather odd trademark infringement lawsuit going down in New York. It appears that "The Naked Cowboy," a Times Square institution (he's basically a guy who plays a guitar in Times Square in a cowboy hat and underwear) not only has a trademark on the concept, but he's suing the Mars Company for a video billboard it put up in Times Square (of course) showing animated M&Ms prancing around in cowboy hats and underwear in a virtual Times Square. As the article above reports, the guy may actually have a case of trademark infringement under current laws, though $6 million seems a bit excessive no matter how sure the cowboy (real name: Robert Burck) is of his chances. The real question, though, is whether or not this makes any real sense. The purpose of trademark law is to prevent consumer confusion. It's to prevent Bob's Cola from labeling its bottles as Coca Cola and getting people to buy something other than what they think they're buying. Is that the case here? Will M&Ms buyers be confused? I doubt it, even when we apply the famous "moron in a hurry" test. It's certainly difficult to see how the ad takes anything away from Burck himself -- though, I imagine the lawsuit should only serve to draw more attention to him, which is likely the point, whether or not he scores $6 million out of Mars.